Currently, the Indian pharmaceutical industry is one of the world’s largest and most developed, ranking 4th in volume terms and 13th in value terms . Hyderabad cluster has come to be recognized as the bulk drugs capital of India. Currently the Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association, Andhra Pradesh has around 450 members, of these 300 are situated around Hyderabad. An initial review of the history, regulatory framework, innovation trends, size and capacity profile of this industrial cluster in Hyderabad by the Foundation for MSME Clusters and experts from the Administrative Staff College of India identified opportunities for (i) Business Development Service (BDS) providers to improving industrial productivity by streamlining supply chain management, (ii) chemical engineering consultants to build and customize technologies to capture and reuse organic volatile compounds from these industries.

In this investigation Centre for Development Finance, Institute for Financial Management and Research andResource Optimization Initiative collaboratively focused on following objectives:-

• Estimate chemical characteristics and approximate quantities of volatile solvents discharged in gaseous and liquid form from bulk drug industries around Hyderabad,
• Identify technologies that can be used to recover these solvents in gaseous form, along with a preliminary financial comparison of costs and benefits,
• Identify the gaps in adoption of new technologies that could help an enterprise in reducing their pollution of air, water and soil and
• Obtain information on the mechanism of diffusion of environmental technologies in the cluster of bulk drug industries around Hyderabad.

The project has lead to several interesting findings on solvent loss via air and effluent and on technology diffusion in this pharmaceutical cluster. Assessment of technology diffusion in this cluster illustrate that there is tremendous opportunity to:
• Build awareness on the availability of technologies to recover gaseous solvents from pharmaceutical companies,
• Provide information on whom to contact for successful expansion of existing recovery units,
• Assist companies to avail financial assistance to overcome hurdle of large investment cost,
• Improve proper maintenance of installed units that are capturing and recycling gaseous solvents,
• Build trust in the technology by increasing the number of tests done on the technology and increasing awareness on results of these tests.

This study was funded by the Foundation for MSME Clusters through a grant from the Department of
Science and Technology, Government of India for promoting innovative cluster in India.